Saturday night's all right for the big one

On Rugby:Ireland versus England, green v white, all that history, the Croker effect, all that, eh, neighbourly rivalry. . . you could probably play it on a Monday morning in front of two men and a dog and it would still have a certain frisson. This match always stood out as the match of the tournament from an Irish perspective for one other simple reason, this is Ireland's only 5.30 kick-off under lights on a Saturday evening.

One of the blights on the Six Nations in recent years has been the advent of television-dictated Saturday lunchtime or worse, far worse, Sunday afternoon kick-offs. He who pays the piper and all that, but Sunday matches simply don't cut it. It's normally a day of rest and reflection, for reading the Sunday papers, for maybe having a walk or a family get-together. Supporters have work the next day, so they don't hang around.

Ireland's historic debut in Croke Park against France will seem more akin to a tea party compared to this coming Saturday. With a later kick-off, with a more prolonged build-up in various dens of iniquity, be they southside, central or northside, there will be a far headier air of expectancy in the crowd.

Matches under lights also create the illusion of the action happening far quicker, of there being a much greater tempo, and from talking to them about this curious truism, this is as much the experience of players as it is spectators.

Trawling through the fixtures and results of the last three campaigns, with the relatively new concept of scattered, TV-dictated kick-offs - with a double header on a Saturday and one Sunday match before a concluding triple header on the final Saturday - a clear pattern emerges. And it's no co-incidence that the final day, be it Super or not, invokes the best of the good old days, even without the title being on the line.

England, presumably at the behest of the BBC, tend to enjoy that later Saturday slot more than anyone else and three seasons ago, Ireland's stand-out games were undoubtedly the 19-13 win at Twickenham (Saturday kick-off at 4pm under lights) and the Triple Crown clinching 37-16 win over Scotland at Lansdowne Road.

Curiously, Ireland's only other "home" game in the later Saturday afternoon slot in the last three years was also against the Scots in the penultimate round last season when, admittedly, the tryless 15-9 win at Lansdowne Road bucked this trend. But the ensuing, memorable 28-24 win at Twickenham in the concluding game of last season's championship (kick-off 5.30) re-affirmed the feeling that, as a rugby spectacle, this is undoubtedly the prime slot.

When cast in stone as the championship denouement three seasons ago, the France-England affair, aka le crunch, duly lived up to its billing with Les Bleus' 24-21 win. By contrast, it's surely no co-incidence that the last two fixtures in this normally taut rivalry were eminently forgettable, and were on Sundays.

Think back to two seasons ago, and how the excitement in Wales' 11-9 win over England on the opening weekend courtesy of Gavin Henson's towering late penalty was somehow accentuated by it being a 5.30 kick-off under the Millennium Stadium floodlights.

Indeed, Wales played four of their five matches that year on Saturdays and the match of the championship was their 24-18 win over France in Paris, the later Saturday kick-off on the middle weekend of the tournament. Similarly, the carnival, feel-good factor surrounding Wales' Grand Slam clinching win over Ireland two seasons ago wasn't in the least hindered by kicking-off at 4pm on a Saturday.

Is it any coincidence that Munster, Leinster and Ulster built up almost unbeatable reputations in their Thomond Park, Donnybrook and Ravenhill fortresses? One can extend this point by thinking back to the better away performances and results. Munster's more famous away wins in the Heineken European Cup have usually come in daylight; the breakthrough win on French soil in Colomiers, the epic semi-final and quarter-final wins away to Toulouse in Bordeaux and Stade Français in Paris, the quarter-final in Welford Road. By contrast, some of the away defeats that stand out - in Gloucester and Sale - were under lights.

Similarly, many of Leinster's best wins on the road - last season's concluding pool win in Bath and the quarter-final victory Toulouse, wins in Northampton and Montferrand previously - were in daylight as opposed to under lights. There are plenty of exceptions to this trend, such as Leinster's contrasting results in Bourgoin, and maybe it's another illusion, but somehow the intensified atmosphere surrounding night-time rugby matches appears to accentuate home advantage.

Fears appear to be mounting that the partisanship on Saturday evening might become excessive. One hopes not. As in football, though on a much reduced scale, watching Leicester and other clubs in action over the weekend reminded us that England and its club game remains the most fertile home from home for expatriate Irish rugby players.

As Pat Howard is wont to suggest, in grooming their relatively unheralded clutch of Irish players, Leicester are actually doing something of a favour for Irish rugby, while the likes of Kevin Maggs and Simon Easterby continue a long line of second generation Irish players born in England.

Irish rugby crowds have consistently covered themselves in glory over the years, both in the silence afforded kickers from both home and away sides, and most obviously and most recently in the respect afforded the haka - something the Cardiff and Twickenham crowds could not emulate.

Saturday will be crackling nonetheless come 5.30 at Croke Park, primarily because it's 5.30.